King Arthur was doing
what he always did when he found himself in a rather tight spot. He was calling
for his Wizard.

The landscape around
Arthur had changed in the blink of an eye. Again. Yes, the new scenery carried
with it a certain rugged beauty. Waves crashed far below the bluff where he was
standing. A bracing, salt spray blew into his face. But this was not
northeastern England where he had been just moments before. This was as remote a
place as he had ever seen. But he recognized it for he had once campaigned here
with his knights.

“Merlin, what are we
doing in Wales?” said Arthur to Merlin, who had just raced up the hill.

Wheezing, Merlin
tugged on his beard and scrunched up his face like a man who has just bitten
into a gooseberry. “I don’t fancy it any more than you do, My Lord, but here we
stand.”

“But Welsh? Am
I now supposed to be King of the Welsh then?”

“Apparently so, Your
Highness.”

“But there are not
sufficient vowels in Wales! As King, must I now be expected to pronounce words
like Pontrhydfendigaid? Or Nantyffyllon? You
must be joking.”

“I only wish I was, Your Eminence.”

Arthur sighed heavily and glanced back at the towers of the Camelot fortress,
which had also just been transplanted from England to this bleak place. The
towers were no longer majestic, having gotten at least twelve makeovers since
the Days of Olde. Now they were some sort of pointy abominations made out of
white canvas.

“What has happened to the towers this time?” asked Arthur.

“They are more energy efficient this way, Exalted One,” muttered Merlin, and as
usual, Arthur had no idea what the man was talking about.

Arthur longed for the days when towers were made out of
good English stone. Actually, he was longing for a whole world full of things.

“Why does everything have to continually change?” pleaded Arthur. “Should I not
be able to fight Saxons as in Days of Yore, protecting English civilization
against the invaders and all that?”

Merlin shrugged his stooped shoulders, shifted his purple Wizard’s hat, and
pointed up at the sky. “It’s Them,” he said.

“Them?” said Arthur, “I thought we only worshiped one God. At least
since we became Christians.”

“They’re not gods, Your Grace. They’re just Them.”

“Who?” asked Arthur.

“Them,” answered Merlin. “The people that decide these things.”

“But who are they and why do they keep making me do these things?” asked
Arthur. “First I’m a hero - a young boy pulling Excalibur from the stone when
all the best warriors in the Realm cannot. Then I’m wielding the sword as a
young man, winning battle after battle, single-handedly slaying 960 of my
enemies in one day. Blood and guts everywhere. Extremely distasteful but somehow
satisfying.

“The next thing I know, I’m forsaking campaigning all
together to chase all over creation with my knights, looking for a dish. Or a
cup. Nobody knows what it actually was because we were never able to find it. I
wasted a lot of time on that one.

“And then I found myself dressed like a namby-pamby,
bowing down to maidens while lutes played and Lancelot ran off with my wife. The
flower of chivalry and all that rot.

“But then it got worse. Suddenly I was breaking into songs
of romance at the slightest prompting. Songs to Guinevere. Songs to the weather.
Even songs to Camelot. I was singing songs to my own house! Court
musicians around every corner to accompany me. Positively beastly! But they made
me do it. I simply could not stop.

“And now this. King Arthur a Welshman? What a miserable
way to spend my final days.”

Merlin brightened. “Oh, these aren’t your final days, Your
Greatness. You’ll never see your final days, if you don’t mind my saying.
They’ll always bring you back, won’t they then?”

“Every story must come to an end, no matter how bold,”
muttered Arthur.

“Not your story. Or mine, for that matter. Things will
simply change.”

“But that is the problem in a nutshell,” complained
Arthur. “Every time I get used to something, it changes. I think there is a
voice in the sky that says, ‘‘ere you go Arthur! Put on these tights, that’s a
good lad! If you bloody hell don’t like ‘em - too bad! And when you get used to
tights, we’ll change ‘em into knickers! Because we know better!’”

Merlin chuckled in spite of himself. He had never seen his
King this worked up before. Nor had he ever heard him use the colloquial accent.

“You’ll get used to it like always, Your Wonderfulness,”
said Merlin soothingly.

Arthur shook his head. “How can I get used to anything
when things are changing faster than ever? Was it not just a few years ago when
we roamed the countryside on pretend horses with people throwing dead cows over
the walls at us? Brilliant! Why don’t we put Arthur in a comedy? The people were
laughing at me. Laughing! The great Arthur, Slayer of the Saxons, turned into an
object of ridicule. And now this…Welsh thing. It seems to have come out of
nowhere.”

Merlin pursed his lips. “Yes, events do seem to be
accelerating. Maybe it’s because there are more of Them now.”

“But who are they?”

“They are Them.”

Arthur grunted. “That is terrible grammar, Merlin.”

Merlin continued patiently. “Them are the ones who
decide things. I can’t discern all the details. I just know that they’re
multiplying, each one looking for new ways to reinvent us. They’re making movies
about us. And TV shows. Not to mention internet blogs. And tweets.”

Arthur covered his bushy head with his hands. “Whatever
are you talking about? Are you speaking Welsh?”

“No, Your Wiseness. It’s English. Sort of. From America.”

“America?” asked Arthur. “Where is that?”

“It’s after your time. You’re not supposed to know.”

Arthur grunted. “If America is after my time, then by
definition I am dead. But you said that they will always bring me back again.”

“And so they did.”

“Very well. So now I can know what is going on and you can
answer my questions.”

“You can only know things to a certain point, Your
Graciousness. If you knew everything, you might rebel against Them and go
your own way.”

“I always go my own way – I’m the bloody King, aren’t I?
Master of all I survey!”

“You can only survey what you can see, My Lord. You cannot
see Them. Even I cannot see Them. Even with my magic.”

Arthur’s face began to turn as red as a plague sore. He
made a sound in the back of his throat like a rooting pig. He began to pace the
edge of the bluff and mutter to himself. Merlin was afraid he would actually
jump off the edge. But he didn’t.

“Am I still King?” asked Arthur finally.

“Indubitably so, Your Exaltedness.”

“King of the Welsh then?”

“Apparently.”

“Then I still have power.” It was a statement, not a
question.

In counterpoint to the King’s words, a wave crashed loudly
on the rocks below. Arthur seemed to gather strength from the sound. He took a
deep breath and thrust out his chest. He looked off to the west, out over the
churning grey waves. He held Excalibur high into the air like he once had in
front of an entire Saxon army. He thrust out his chin and shouted at the top of
his lungs, his voice echoing.

“I am Arthur, Conqueror of Saxons and Subjugator of Scots!
On this day, the Year of Our Lord…” he paused and looked at Merlin
questioningly.

“I’m not sure what year it is, Your Powerfulness,”
answered Merlin. “With all the changes, I’ve lost track.”

“Never mind then. On this day, in the Year of Our Lord
whatever, I resolve to start a Great Crusade to find Them! And when I do
find Them at last, I will slay Them, every last one of Them.
And I will scatter their pitiful remains to the four winds so that they can
never change anything again!”

And with that, Arthur raced off the bluff and into the
fortress of Camelot to prepare for battle as he had done so many times before.

Merlin watched him go and remained on the bluff alone,
gazing down at the surf. He sighed. His job was to comfort the King but there
were some times when even the most powerful Wizard was helpless in this regard.
No one could stand against Them. Arthur had a better chance of finding
the Grail.

But there was no more time to dwell on these great
matters. For Merlin sensed something coming on fast, something very big moving
in from the west like a winter gale. He knew instinctively that Arthur’s reign
as King of the Welsh would be very short-lived indeed. In the next few minutes,
a monumental change would come to Camelot that would dwarf everything that had
come before.

An ominous rumbling could now be heard far out over the
water, from way beyond Wales, from way beyond even Ireland. A wall of darkness
was moving in quickly, changing everything in its path. Like a tidal wave it
came, engulfing the whole world. In seconds, it had engulfed Camelot. Again.

***

To Merlin, it had simply felt like a blink. One second he
had been standing on the cliff over the water and the next second he was
somewhere very different. Or rather, somewhere very different had come to him.
The rocky, moss-covered ground beneath his feet had given way to some sort of
smooth, hard, black surface. The ocean had disappeared, replaced with a jumble
of streets and buildings. The sound of the wind had been replaced with a clamor
and clanging that was louder than anything Merlin had ever heard, even in the
midst of the fiercest battles.

Improbably, Merlin now found himself standing in the
middle of a huge city. It was not a medieval city surrounded by stone walls, but
a city of concrete and iron. Strange-looking four-wheeled carriages were parked
everywhere along an endless maze of streets. There were a few trees, but they
were not like the green trees of England. These trees mostly looked tired from
trying to live in the noxious air.

Merlin, the greatest Wizard of all, was actually a bit
nonplussed. This whole scenario was nearly beyond his vast knowledge, but not
completely. And he was nothing if not adaptable. And like always, knowledge of
the new situation came into Merlin’s head like magic, along with instructions.
So after a few minutes, he laughed. Arthur was not going to believe this one. If
the King had thought that the other changes were troublesome, wait until he
beheld this latest incarnation. For by now Merlin knew what had happened.
Moments ago, Arthur had been asking about America. And now America had come to
them.

Merlin looked to the east where Arthur’s fortress had just
been. It too had changed. Instead of a castle with canvas towers, it was now a
very tall, dilapidated building with endless rows of windows, many of them
broken or cracked. On the front of its worn brick façade were the words,

“CAMELOT TOWERS – CHICAGO HOUSING
AUTHORITY.”

Merlin took off his Wizard’s hat, which had now become a
wide-brimmed, blue cap with a red ‘C’ stitched on the front. But there was no
time to ponder this. Once again, he would have to do his wizardly job. Lately he
was becoming less and less Wizard and more and more Counselor. And his King was
certainly going to need counseling now. Lots of it.

As Merlin looked on and tried not to laugh, Arthur
staggered out of Camelot Towers. He was wearing baggy pants that sat halfway
down his thighs, making him waddle like a duck. The top of his underwear was
showing around his ample, royal behind. Instead of Excalibur, he was carrying
some sort of tapered, wooden club. His neck was weighted down with enough shiny
baubles on gold chains to rival the Crown Jewels of England. And as he weaved
unsteadily towards Merlin, something like music was blaring from everywhere. It
had no lilting, medieval melody. In fact, it had no melody at all. It was
composed chiefly of throbbing beats, relentless bass notes, and shouted, angry
words.

Arthur swayed in the middle of all this chaos, mouth
opening and closing like a cod on the beach. His frightened eyes found Merlin’s
and the Wizard was reminded of the small boy who had once pulled a sword out of
a stone. Merlin was no longer amused, but took pity on his King. He walked
forward and put his hand on Arthur’s shoulder.

“You’ve been given a new Quest,” said Merlin.

“Another Grail?” asked Arthur, eyes darting back and forth
in misery and fear.

“Much more difficult this time,” said Merlin.

“Good God,” said Arthur. “What is it?”

“You are to gather eight knights and teach them to play a
game.”

Arthur pursed his lips. “A game? As in jousting?”

“Something like that,” said Merlin. “And then you are to
travel to the Field Of Wrigley to seek out the Sacred Ring.”

“It’s to be a ring this time? What kind of ring?”

“A ring that has been lost to this city for over a hundred
years. A ring that can only be worn by Champions Of The World.”

Arthur’s face brightened in spite of himself. “Champions
of the entire world? Of every realm and country?”

“Well, not exactly. It’s just champions of America but
they like to flatter themselves.”

Arthur sighed. “I feel that this will be exceedingly
difficult.”
“You have no idea,” muttered Merlin. “But at least you still have
Excalibur.”

Arthur looked at the wooden club in his hand. It was wide
at one end and tapered at the other, with a natural, smooth handle. Words were
carved into the wide part.

“Excalibur – Baseball Bat of
Champions.”

Arthur wielded the club with both hands and swung it back
and forth. “It feels rather formidable. Am I to hit my rivals over the head with
this?”

“Not exactly,” said Merlin. “You’re supposed to hit a
ball.”

“A ball? But where is the honor in that?”

“You’ll see,” Merlin assured him.

And then there was nothing else to do but seek out the
eight knights and find their way to the Field of Wrigley. And then they would go
for the Sacred Ring.

As the two of them walked along, or rather, as Merlin
walked and Arthur waddled, Merlin looked up at the sky and whispered, “This is
your stupidest idea yet.”